


Vexed Expectations

by editoress



Category: Unsounded
Genre: Gen, Travel Banter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:54:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24241645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/editoress/pseuds/editoress
Summary: During their early travels, Sette comes to an unhappy realization. Duane isn't really sure what the problem is. Small ficlet originally entered into a contest.
Relationships: Duane Adelier & Sette Frummagem
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Vexed Expectations

Truly, Duane could not trace back the path that had led them to this unfortunate topic. The idle prattle of the road was not in itself significant, and so he took no particular pains to remember its contents. Rather, it served as a balm of human connection along seamless hours of travel, though since his companion was Sette it might better be called an allergen. Still, he indulged, seeking to fill the empty time between crises and provide Sette with something akin to a decent influence. But good intentions paved the road to unnecessary epiphanies.

"That weren’t forty years ago!" Sette realized with a burst of indignant volume.

It was a belated remark, and Duane had to dredge up the exact nature of the innocuous but exasperated "when I was your age" comment he had made. "Something like that," he agreed.

Sette turned on him with disappointment. Her face was pure expression—the sullen set of the brow, the childish twist of the mouth, the solemn hurt in her eyes. Ah, if the finest actors could dream of portraying half so much with a single look, they would never want for weeping audiences. She folded her arms. "Yer tellin' me yer a zombie and ya ain't even properly old?"

It occurred to Duane that Sette was the only person he had ever met who was consistently  _ underwhelmed _ by his undead state, and he had no right nor room to be either surprised or offended; yet his mouth opened slightly in a dual assault from both. "I—"

"Forty's practically dead for livin' folks," Sette asserted, which sent Duane into another bout of affront. She turned and kept walking with a mockingly youthful spring. "Everything starts fallin' off. Just not as bad as you."

"Blessed saints," Duane said in a vague and despairing way, which presumably the saints were used to.

"But a  _ zombie _ ?" She shot him a look of disgust, the sort most gave him for being too _ far beyond _ the grave, not too near it for their liking. "A  _ zombie _ what's not even a hundred?"

"How old did you believe me to be?" It was a terrible question to ask in life and somehow, like him, had only worsened since, and he knew he had erred as soon as the words left him.

"Old enough for bein' impressive!" she shot back. "Old enough I could say, 'Stand back! I wrangled this attack zombie meself! He's spent the last five hundred years guardin' tombs and eatin' intruders less tasty than you!'"

"Based on how little you value veracity you could say that in any case."

"I can say what I wanna!" Sette agreed airily. "But it ain't the same if I didn't wrangle ya from a haunted barrow."

"You didn't," Duane made the mistake of pointing out.

"I could've if you was five hundred years old an' in a barrow somewhere!" she protested. "Now I gotta say I got an attack zombie as can fill out yer tax forms and is a measly fifty or sixty years altogether."

"First you want violence of me, and now age?" Duane shook his head. There was joy to be found in life, and sometimes even now, but not for the centuries Sette demanded. "No, I have no wish to live so long. Less so in this wretched state. What should I fill the centuries with?" He pushed lightly at her hand so she would stop chewing on her nail. "Had I a mortal age I couldn't hope to educate your worse habits."

Sette rolled her eyes and bit down on her thumbnail with extra gusto. "Ya talk too much, ya won't bite nobody, and now yer only fifty." She let out an explosive sigh. "There's  _ alive _ people who're more'n fifty! Yer the most boring zombie who ever didn't live."

"Thank you," he said, dryly.

"I s'pose it's lucky yer alright at spellery," she mused. She frowned and rubbed her jaw in the picture of clever thoughtfulness, but the squint of her eyes spoke more of gastrointestinal distress. She yet had some work to do on her more sagacious expressions. "Since ya got no chops as a zombie."

It was as much of an acceptance as he was likely to get from his prickly companion, and by now he appreciated it for what it was. He gave Sette a quick smile. She pretended not to see it, as was her wont, and instead sighed as though the whole of the world were set against her at every turn and she was so very brave to face all these obstacles, like being guarded by a galit who was less of a fireside tale than she preferred. Ungrateful brat—but not one he would soon do without.

Minutes later, another smile pulled at Duane's face. "So you're saying... you'd rather I be a wright than a wight?"

"Whassa wight?"

"Ah," he said, pained, "never mind."


End file.
